


Cover your eyes you're not ready to see this

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: As It All Burns [10]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, GFY, Gen, aftermath of torture (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3732601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why is there a Twi'lek girl yelling at me in my dreams? She's tiny and cranky and I think she was yelling about coming home?"</p><p>--</p><p>"You should rest."</p><p>"I know. I won't. Not until my sisters are here. Will you rest before your brothers come back with Padawan Tano?"</p><p>"I have a general to watch over."</p><p>"I have three sisters. My Commander - my Queen - is safe in someone else's hands, and I won't rest easily until I and my sisters are back at her side."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cover your eyes you're not ready to see this

Obi-Wan wakes to a snarl that if he doesn't let go, they'll figure out how to make a prosthetic, pushing himself away from Maul as quickly as he can extricate himself from the tangle of sheets in the center of the sheets.

"What were you dreaming?" Maul is shoving away from the bed even as he speaks, turning once he's paced to the half-fallen wall at the far end of the room.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Obi-Wan runs a hand through his hair, trying to sort the images that are all jumbled together in his head. "The usual death and destruction." Those images are familiar and he can dismiss some of them easily. "A girl? She was yelling, but I couldn't hear what she was trying to say. There was too much noise? Or distance."

Obi-Wan can hear Maul continuing to pace as he scrubs at his face. "My Master, blood on his face. An older man I think is Dooku - my Master's Master - and Queen Amidala." He pauses, his brow furrowing. "I think there were two of her, actually. Not her as a handmaiden and a handmaiden as decoy, but two women with the face-paint on."

He takes a breath, but before he can detail more, there's a knock on the outer door, just audible, and an agitated tug at the training bond with Anakin. Probably a prod at Maul as well, as the Zabrak heads for the arches to the garden while Obi-Wan untangles the sheets and wraps one around him.

"Why is there a Twi'lek girl yelling at me in my dreams?" Anakin doesn't even wait to get into the room to ask the question, his frustration preceding him as he pads in, flopping half across the bed. "She's tiny and cranky and I think she was yelling about coming home?"

"You had a clearer dream about the girl than I did, then." Obi-Wan reaches over to ruffle Anakin's hair, ignoring the disgruntled look that gets him from his shared apprentice. "Perhaps it is a sign we should rejoin the rest of the galaxy to finish your training."

"I thought you said I was almost done!" Anakin rolls over, sitting up to glare at them both, head turning back and forth.

"I never said you were almost done." Maul snorts, a tunic already dragged on over his head. He tosses a pair of clean trousers at Obi-Wan before leaning against the column between the two arches.

Obi-Wan sheds the sheet after catching them, ignoring the color that rises in Anakin's cheeks as he slides into the trousers. It's good to have clean clothes.

"Yesterday, you said 'Soon'." Anakin fixes his glare on Maul. "What was I supposed to think that meant?"

"You weren't." Maul meets Obi-Wan's gaze over Anakin's head, his smile sharp-edged and amused.

The frustration from Anakin boils over into a momentary burst of anger, and Obi-Wan holds up a hand to deflect the pillow that is sent flying at him with Force-enhanced speed.

"There's only so much that can be taught in isolation, Anakin." Obi-Wan tosses the pillow back to the bed, watching Anakin for a long moment. "It won't be so bad to see other people again."

"If they hurt either of you, yes it will be." Anakin scowls, crossing his arms over his chest. "If we killed Sidious, we'd be heroes, and they'd have to leave you alone."

"Would that it were that easy." Obi-Wan rolls his eyes, heading for the main room, and his clothes. If they could so easily kill Sidious, he'd never have needed to ally himself with Maul to teach Anakin. They wouldn't have needed to hide on a backwater planet at the furthest reaches of the Republic that hid their Force-signatures from anyone who might be looking.

He never would have needed to break Maul out of the Temple, because if Maul had been confident of his ability to kill Sidious, they never would have met on Naboo over crossed sabers.

* * *

Eirtaé paces the small lounge of the CIS ship, not quite ignoring the Jedi meditating to one side, and the clone leaning against the wall near him. Guarding his Jedi until the rest of the squad and the younger Jedi return with Saché and Rabé - or Rabé's body - and they're all together again. She cannot stand still while two of her sisters, in bond and battle and blood and all but birth, are where she cannot know if they live or die.

Three, really, but no one has seen Sabé since Naboo left the Republic, and she'd been given some assignment by their Commander that the rest of them weren't informed of. She is the best equipped of them to survive, and Eirtaé stubbornly refuses to believe Sabé is dead or captured unless she sees it with her own eyes.

"You should rest." The clone has been watching her, and Eirtaé turns on her heel to frown at him. Dormé has already tried to tell her that, three times since Saché left, and she knows better than this clone how unlikely that is.

"I know." Eirtaé turns away again, walking until she can touch the view-ports at the one end of the lounge. "I won't. Not until my sisters are here." She watches the darkness of space, with the pin-pricks of stars reminding her of nothing but glittering debris scattered across scorched ground. "Will you rest before your brothers come back with Padawan Tano?"

There's a quiet chuckle, and the clicking shift of armor against durasteel bulkheads. "I have a general to watch over."

"I have three sisters." Eirtaé lets one corner of her mouth curl up in a wry smile. "My Commander - my Queen - is safe in someone else's hands, and I won't rest easily until I and my sisters are back at her side."

The clone doesn't respond, and Eirtaé keeps her watch on the stars, hands clenching at her side, helpless to do anything but worry for now. She knows Saché will do everything in her power, and she knows the clones will watch out for her. They understand about brothers that are closer than anything else, even if they have the advantage of shared blood, shared parentage, that the handmaidens do not.

How long they stand there with silence seeping into their bones, a peace that is as fragile as trust hanging between them, Eirtaé doesn't know. Only that she startles when the door to the lounge hisses open, Ellé visible reflected in the view-port, painted face hanging in black like an angry ghost.

"They're back."

Two words, and all three of them are moving, following Ellé through the corridors toward the hangers at the center of the ship. The small shuttle has landed, and already disgorged the clones - two of them supported by their comrades, limping and injured. A medical droid is heading up the ramp, and Eirtaé picks up the skirts of her robes, bolting for the shuttle.

Dormé is ahead of her, already on the shuttle, holding onto Saché as the younger woman leans against her, face drawn and almost as pale as the paint that hides her features.

"She's alive, but they..." Saché shakes her head as her words fade, glancing instead to the bunk where the medical droid is already tending to their fallen sister. Eirtaé doesn't look yet, meeting Dormé's gaze instead, tilting her head toward the shuttle's ramp.

"Come on. Eirtaé and Ellé will watch over her while the medical droid works." Dormé rubs Saché's shoulder, waiting until the youngest of them begins to walk on her own, guiding her out of the shuttle. Leaving Eirtaé and Ellé with the medical droid and Padawan Tano, who looks more ochre than orange at the moment, and both younger and older than she had when the shuttle left.

"Master Koon is outside, Padawan Tano." Eirtaé meets the girl's gaze when she looks away from Rabé, smiling a moment, though she knows the mask of paint makes it more a grimace than anything kinder. "You have done well, and I thank you for bringing my sister home to me."

"We're not home yet." Tano lets out a shaky breath, wrapping her arms around herself. Looking entirely like the thirteen year old girl she is, who shouldn't have seen a battlefield, shouldn't have killed, shouldn't have seen death, not yet. Not even a Jedi child should have seen death so close yet.

"I've got her." Ellé slips past Eirtaé, doing as Dormé had with Saché, and getting Tano out of the shuttle. Leaving Eirtaé alone to see what the Imperials had done to her sister, what had left shadows on a Jedi's face and stolen words from their youngest sister.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Nothing Left to Lose" by Heaven's Basement


End file.
